Post #21: The Incubation Period 🪺
Nearing the homestretch of my memoir, the power of appreciation, and sending you lots of good energy (and a special gift!) from the "Invisible Fences" cast and crew.
WHERE DID GAELYNN LEA GO???
… SHE’S RETREATING TO HER WRITING COCOON UNTIL HER BOOK IS DONE!
Hello, Friends!
I hope you are doing as well as can be during this post-election week. It's been very emotional to process these results, but I am convinced more now than ever that the world needs a vibrant counter-culture of inclusion, equality, respect, dignity and love.
DOUBLING DOWN (ON GRATITUDE):
My personal plan is to double down on gratitude and appreciation to help counter stress, stay grounded, and to remind me that there is a great deal of loving-kindness happening around me every day, if I will only look for it. I believe that acknowledging the good out there will help strengthen me for advocacy work, that it will bolster my resilience and allow me to stay more open and compassionate towards others.
There’s plenty of interesting studies about the psychology and neuroscience of gratitude, and I totally recommend you check them out if you haven't read them... But you don’t need to pore over a bunch of studies to test it out in your own life! For example, keeping a gratitude journal — this can be as simple as writing down just three things you’re grateful for at the beginning or end of each day — can bolster your overall happiness levels in just a course of a few weeks! Plus it just plain feels good.
There’s no wrong way to practice gratitude — the goal is just to switch over to that frequency for a few minutes each day. Today I put my hand on my heart and, one by one, I thought of three people who have positively impacted me, and really allowed myself to feel the gratitude I have for them. For Jerry Hull, the woman who started an adaptive ballet class for me and other disabled kids when I was no older than six years old. For Nancy Diener, the kind student advisor for our college’s disability awareness group, who encouraged our fledgling disability advocacy to fight for a Deaf Studies Minor. And for Mary Stromdahl, my amazing (and hilarious) aide from third grade until graduation, who not only helped me in school each day, but traveled with me to debate tournaments and orchestra trips so I could participate alongside my peers!
I let my mind linger on these three kind and selfless humans until I could literally feel a warm, loving energy flood my chest. That’s when I started crying — though, as my friend Ryan Haddad has often told me, I could cry watching a blade of grass grow.
Nonetheless, I was amazed how switching today’s gratitude practice to other people had such a powerful impact — and likely there’s at least one or two or three people in your life for whom you are grateful. So if you’re feeling down, I highly recommend it!
INVISIBLE FENCES RUNS FOR TWO MORE WEEKENDS!
Invisible Fences, the play I co-wrote with the disabled author Kevin Kling, just finished its first weekend at Zeitgeist Theater in Duluth, MN and there are two weekends left! Sheryl Jensen of Destination Duluth wrote an extremely touching review. This family-friendly play is so uplifting and joyful — I hope you’re able to experience it in person!
The Largroff (me) is a platypus who was born with a spontaneous genetic mutation that caused her to sprout wings, horns and a snout. Grasshopper (Kevin) has wings that don’t work very well, and is on a quest to get to the city for a peaceful retirement. Together, the pair comes face-to-face with different worlds, dangers and dreams. My songs are accompanied by our superb narrator, George Ellsworth, on electric guitar.
This show is designed from the ground up to be welcoming and accessible to everyone, especially folks with disabilities. This is why there is ASL Interpretation, captioning, and narrated audio description at every single performance! For accessible and ASL seating, please email boxoffice@zeitgeistarts.com to reserve your seat. Adult tickets are $25 and student tickets are $15 each. Zeitgeist is also a barrier-free theater, so please email Mary@zeitgeistarts.com to request free or reduced-priced tickets.
You can purchase tickets here — it runs Thursdays to Saturdays ‘til November 23rd!
Thematically, the play centers on the belief that both Lea and Kling espouse that “disability is diversity,” not something negative but something to be embraced and revered. The play demonstrates vividly that disability culture brings something unique and important to all forms of art… Go see “Invisible Fences.” Bring the kids. Bring your friends and neighbors. Prepare to be enveloped in the show’s warmth, positivity, and hope.
-Sheryl Jensen, Destination Duluth
SIGNING OFF UNTIL MY MANUSCRIPT IS COMPLETE
For the past full year, I have been working on my memoir whenever I haven’t been traveling for gigs. Currently I am nearing the end of Chapter 17 (out of twenty), but it’s due soon! So for this final push, I am going into a “book incubation period” — I won’t be updating this Substack, I will leave my emails and social media to my wonderful assistant Carrie, and I’ll finally get to focus all my brain cells on the last few chapters!
I love writing essays for you and I miss the monthly Substack Zooms, both things I will promptly resume when the completed manuscript is finally in my editor’s hands. But for now I just have to put my head down and type like the wind! Know that I truly appreciate your support and I am so grateful for your replies and participation here.
A PARTING GIFT, IN HONOR OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON
Before I sign off, I want to leave you with a little present… Below you’ll see the Invisible Fences video, complete with captions! Kevin and the Zeitgeist staff kindly let me share this with you as a parting gift... I hope it provides you with a bit of extra lightness during the darkest days of the year (the sunset was at 4:37pm today — what the heck?!)
This particular video is from the July 2023 run at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis — if you enjoy the video, please do me a favor and think of one Minnesotan you can tell about our show. We’re at Zeitgeist Theater in Duluth until November 23rd, and we’ll be back at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis in March 2025. We would love to pack the house for both runs. Help us support these small, independent theaters in their amazing missions of providing a space for original theater productions to flourish.
Thank you for reading this, Friends. In the weeks ahead, may you connect with the people and things that bring you joy, and may you spread love and kindness near and far! I’ll see you on the other side of my memoir — I can’t wait to share it with you!
Very Truly,
Gaelynn Lea
I came away from your post feeling a little bit more able to cope with the road ahead. Thanks!
Thank you, Gaelynn! What a boost. You are such a very generous soul. 🙏
And may all of your muses carry you victoriously over the finish line for your book. Standing by to pre-order! 💖